During their lunch break, tech leaders, social innovators, government officials, and future thinkers at the Digital Nations 2030 conference will get schooled. Twenty kids from Code Club Aotearoa will take delegates through a lesson in Scratch, a programming …During their lunch break, tech leaders, social innovators, government officials, and future thinkers at the Digital Nations 2030 conference will get schooled. Twenty kids from Code Club Aotearoa will take delegates through a lesson in Scratch, a programming language designed especially for 8 to 16 year olds, but used by people of all ages.

Digital Nations 2030 is the annual conference of the Digital 5, or D5, a network of the world’s most advanced digital nations, including New Zealand. The D5 have a shared goal of strengthening the digital economy, and the conference aims to figure out the actions needed to create a truly digital nation by 2030.

“Code Club and the D5 share the same mission – preparing kids for the future, using open source technology, and working together,” says Michael Trengrove, co-founder of Code Club Aotearoa which is a charitable trust. “We want to give New Zealand kids the skills, confidence and opportunity to shape their world, and for that opportunity to be open to everyone,” he says.

As part of an international network of free, volunteer-led clubs, Code Club Aotearoa is open to everyone. The mission is to give every kid the opportunity to learn to code. To do this, Code Club Aotearoa provides resources and support to their network of free coding clubs, volunteers, teachers and parents. The clubs use fun, discovery and play to create learning.

“It’s not only about supporting the next generation of tech entrepreneurs,” says Trengrove. “All kids need coding skills to become digital citizens. That’s why we’ve seen digital technologies introduced into the New Zealand school curriculum, in year one. It’s an urgent matter. We want New Zealand kids to do more than imagine the future – we want them to be able to build it.”